For the third time, Steve Wynn has pulled back from Atlantic City. This time he’s yanking Wynn Interactive‘s application for an online casino. The move comes an awfully long time after Wynn announced his opposition to Internet wagering, so who knows what the real rationale is? Perhaps Wynn lost patience with New Jersey‘s regulatory process, which has been set on glacier speed ever since PokerStars teed up its licensing application. Some suspect that Gov. Chris Christie (R) is putting the fix in against additional online casinos … at least until he’s won the “Sheldon Adelson primary” and filled his campaign coffers. For its part, PokerStars is swearing it will be licensed this autumn, but I could swear I heard them playing that golden oldie last autumn.
The news comes as a blow to Caesars Interactive, which would have paired with Wynn Interactive to offer Web wagering. Wynn Resorts is not commenting on the withdrawal, which comes two years after its CEO said it might make this very move. You have to be an early riser to out-guess Steve Wynn.
* Daily fantasy sports Web sites led with their chin and ran into a regulatory buzzsaw. Or maybe officials in Massachusetts, California and Nevada got tired of seeing those two douchebags 
having an orgasm on their TV sets. Either way, the elevated profile of DFS is provoking the question of whether or not it’s sports betting. (We all know it is, but let’s play along.) Since FanDuel and DraftKings are trying to make the case that they’re not engaged in gambling, it didn’t exactly help their cause to have American Gaming Association President Geoff Freeman come out and laud them as an “exciting new platform.” That’s the kind of endorsement DFS is trying to avoid.
* It’s that time of year again, when reporters dust off the “sordid bus ride to a casino” story. Only this time, instead of Sands Bethlehem or (the favored target) Atlantic City, the star of the show is Resorts World New York. Reporter Ben Feuerherd manages to catch a ride with some of the scurviest characters you’ll ever encounter and there’s even a casino-floor fatality to liven [sic?] things up. Resorts World may not be a Las Vegas Sands-caliber property but it will have to do for seven years or so, until the big Vegas companies can move on the Five Boroughs.
Okies from Muskogee, you’ve got still more reason for civic pride. It’s becoming the latest home to the Margaritaville brand of casinos. But you’ll have to wait until next September to gamble there and the hotel tower won’t be finished until a year from December. The ex-River Spirit Resort & Casino enjoys a stunning location and project leaders say the final product will be competitive with anything in Las Vegas. We’ll let our Oklahoma readers be the judge of that.
* Faced with a budget deficit and an intractable national legislature, Brazil‘s president, Dilma Rousseff has proposed a new way to extract eggs from the golden goose: casino gambling. 
We like her thinking but how will it fly with lawmakers? You can still bet on the ponies in Brazil but even bingo is illegal, as casinos have been since 1946. One potential Rousseff ally is making the argument that it’s better to keep gambling lucre at home, rather than see it wagered in Paraguay, Uruguay or even Las Vegas.
There is already some pushback from the political establishment, with national association of prosecutors President Jose Robalinho Cavalcanti balefully warning that just allowing bingo would represent “a huge step backwards.” (Yeah, those bingo players are real cutthroats.) Given the limited gambling options currently available, $3.5 billion is currently wagered in Brazil (never mind the black market). Add casinos to the mix and the financial projections jump exponentially, to $17 billion. Tax that at 33.5% and Rousseff banks $5.7 billion for the government.
* Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) probably meant his confrontation with the Culinary Union in Las Vegas to be a rallying cry. Instead, it was more like a last gasp.
Resorts World is disgusting (really).